Burned At Your Altar
by Shade Embry
Summary: Doggett and his pre-XF partner have one of their rare fights and making up is never quite the same.


Burned At Your Altar - Thespis   
Category: Vignette | Rating: PG | Spoilers: Alone  
Summary: After an argument ensues when he explains  
what happened on his partner's day off, Doggett  
discovers in the aftermath that there is a limit to  
all things.  
Author's Note: Listening to these two songs over and  
over has messed with my brain. I apologize if I  
misquote their lyrics since they've confused me to  
death. Standard disclaimers/instructions apply.  
  
Under the stars each night  
I wonder if stairs go there  
I'm lonely driving behind the wheel  
Can't get nowhere  
I can't seem to get it right  
Is there a place?  
And under the stars tonight  
I wonder if someone cares  
I'm lonely that's the way I feel  
Can't feel no stairs  
There is a place...  
- Frank Black, "Man of Steel"  
  
She looks down over the side of the Hoover Building  
at the D.C. night below, feeling the icy touch of the  
cold wind and the lonely symphony of her heart beating  
in her chest. She feels different without him,  
ostracized, missing a part of herself as if she is now  
possessed of a gaping entrance wound made by a rocket  
launcher. She looks down at her hands, a useless  
gesture, and she can find no words for herself. No one  
gets there alone, they say. But no one said what  
happens when you get there, what happens after you've  
been standing there. She stands there even though her  
work day is over because there is no reason to go  
home. Because she cannot believe him and in turn she  
can't believe herself. The impossibility of us, she  
thinks, the impossibility of life.  
She can hear him coming, not by any trick of hearing  
but by the tingle at the base of her skull that could  
always detect him from a mile away, the sensation of  
calm that now drapes over her like a web of her own  
creation. And she turns to face him, a frozen shade in  
her decisiveness and the dead flicker in her eyes, not  
being able to find any words for him, either. She is  
not possessed of anything other than simply being and  
she can only look at him and know this is the man that  
is her world, and that her world is falling out of  
orbit faster than the Mir space station on a really,  
truly, horrible day. She can only look into his eyes  
and see mirrors that reflect who she really is, and  
realize that mirrors can be deceptive, anyway.  
"I'm sorry," he says.  
His voice is possessed of the symphony she knows it  
to be, this time driven by an undercurrent of  
acceptance and loneliness and cognizance and loyalty  
that has been sharpened over seven years, the wounded  
pride, the wounded human being that comes from the cut  
of this razorblade and the burning, searing pain that  
she can feel inside herself. Two words. No more than  
necessary. In a strategy all about the extra mile, he  
allows himself only what he needs, holding back, at  
least for now, all that he wants.  
"I know," she says.  
She matches him expenditure for expenditure,  
undercurrent for undercurrent, risking the exposure of  
part of herself she thought had slipped away under his  
careful ministrations. It is barely there, but she  
knows that it is, the hint of a younger, more  
untested, more unforged ex-Baltimore homicide  
detective who didn't know where she was going, who was  
running and she didn't know where, who didn't know  
about the man she met. She didn't know him but by  
chance, by being thrown together with him and looking  
at him, into his eyes, and knowing he was something  
different. In coming from a world all about darkness,  
she saw in his eyes and his welcome smile and the way  
he handled her, that first day and every day  
thereafter, a ray of Edenic light.   
"Can we talk about this?" he offers.  
He knows what she is feeling, the memory she  
remembers, because it is imprinted in his mind as well  
as hers. He knew that he would be assigned a partner  
in due time, but he hadn't expected it to be the woman  
who walked into his life that day and who will never  
walk out. She was inherently confident, her  
intelligence no secret, and there was something about  
her that made him know that this particular  
arrangement was not in any way destined to hurt him,  
but only to help him. Help him so much that he knows  
what she wants to say, but will not allow herself to  
say.  
"Yeah," she says.  
These are the motions, those which they go through  
maybe once or twice a year if they are unlucky. These  
are the words of partners who for once have met at a  
crossroads and gone separate directions. These are the  
actions of two people who truly want to forgive each  
other and hold each other and say that everything is  
okay but who cannot do so because they are who they  
are. These are the battles that they pretend to fight  
to assuage their intelligences, even when their hearts  
break, crying for each other's forgiveness and  
everything they give to each other. This is the war,  
on this night, that is a lost war and no one cares.  
The war that began, as every time, by accident.  
He had said one thing, she had said another. He had  
called her on it, she had called him on something  
else. And by that time they had grown to pointing out  
all the problems of those strategies until their  
confidences, their thinking minds, were simply torn  
apart by the friction. A simple verbal disagreement  
which escalated. No punches were thrown, except the  
phantom ones to the gut which they can feel even when  
they try to play past the pain.  
"You deserve better than this," he insists, hanging  
back while there is still tension. "You could get the  
transfer out any time you asked. You should get out of  
here. This place takes over your life, your mind, your  
dreams, the way you think, the way you act, it owns  
you. Herman Stites, you saw what he did to Harrison.  
Reptile men and antivenin treatments and wayward  
gunshots and all those screwups out there that  
happened that day, any day ... You're better than all of  
this. Don't do this to yourself."  
"It's not that way," she insists back. "All those  
things you talk about ... My mother and my sister and  
upstairs and the whispers in hallways, they did those  
things to me. No X-File has ever done what everything  
else already did. I've been through all this before.  
I'm still standing here and I won't walk away. My  
getting here's got ulterior motives. I know that. But  
my being here is my choice."  
"I..." he begins, closing some but not all of the  
distance between them; she is barely out of arm's  
reach. "I didn't want you to risk yourself. Not for  
something like this."  
"I wanted to," she says after a heartbeat. "You know  
I would, because I have to."  
"You never have to," he says, doesn't wait, then  
again, his voice quieter, out of respect and other  
emotions he cannot easily classify this moment. "You  
never have to."  
"Yes, I do." She looks up, into his eyes, holding his  
gaze. "I know I do."  
He reaches for her hand and his fingers close over  
hers. "I'd never ask you to."  
"You'd never have to," she assures him.  
A small smile crosses his face. What have I done,  
what past life have I lived, in order to deserve to be  
so blessed? he wonders. Why am I so honored so as to  
have this woman, this paragon of all I want and need  
in someone else, my partner, my best friend, why am I  
so lucky to have her follow me anywhere?  
"I'm sorry," he says again, needlessly.  
"So am I," she replies, briefly looking down, away.  
He doesn't let go of her hand - he couldn't bear it,  
not this moment, not when there is unbearable space  
between them - but he reaches over with his other hand  
and brings her head back to where it was. She should  
never look down, she should never feel she has to, he  
thinks. He adjusts her heaD so they make eye contact  
again, and she smiles at the gesture, her eyes  
shimmering in the light of the D.C. evening. He puts  
his arms around her, invites her into an embrace that  
she accepts. Her head rests on his shoulder, tucked  
against his neck, listening to his heart beat,  
inhaling the air and his cologne, watching the stars  
past him, and he holds her against him, not too tight  
but never weakly, feeling all of her muscles relax. He  
listens to her exhale a breath he knows she's been  
holding, and without knowing it he lets out one of his  
own. Expressions of relief cross their faces but they  
don't see them, and they don't have to.  
There is silence for a moment, the only sound two  
hearts beating in almost unison, the way it should be,  
he reflects.  
"What time is it?" she asks him.  
He checks his watch. "Ten-thirty."  
"Later than I thought," she admits, almost  
sheepishly. He smiles. Everything is usually later  
than she thinks. She is usually later than she thinks.  
It has become a fixture in her life. She is a fixture  
in his. "No surprise," he says, daring to venture a  
joke, waiting to see if he's fucked the whole thing up  
again. She laughs dryly and his fear dissipates. Only  
after another moment do they pull apart.  
"I left my backpack in the office," she tells him.  
He nods. "My stuff's still there," he says, but he  
doesn't want to leave this moment. To leave this roof  
might concede the moment, might break this fragile  
reconciliation. "It'll wait," he says to her.  
She smiles. He has never seen a more beautiful smile.  
"Come here," she offers, starting towards the edge of  
the roof, the spot where he first found her, tense and  
quiet. "I want to show you something."  
He moves with her to the edge, looking down on the  
D.C. streets and traffic below, the conflagration of  
lights, yellow, red, white, and other colors, lights  
of vehicles and buildings and traffic poles and neon  
signs on the street below. A tapestry of small suns of  
various shades, flaring up, flickering, dying out,  
rising again, making a fascinating image. Much like  
those who observe it. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" she  
says quietly, taking her eyes off the road to look at  
him. He looks down a moment longer, then meets her  
eyes and nods. "The one bright moment of the day," he  
quips with cognizance.   
"I don't know what I was thinking," she says  
absently.  
"You were thinking what you have every right to," he  
says immediately, trying to erase any further doubt,  
put this night's battle at peace. "Don't ever think  
you weren't."  
"I can't help it," she admits with a smirk. "Some  
days," she continues, looking back toward the  
stairwell for a moment, "I just want to put my head in  
my hands and say 'This is not happening. This is not  
happening.' But I know it is."  
They sit on the edge of the roof, on the railing,  
nothing but air between them and certain death, and  
they realize they really don't care.  
His eyes flash with knowledge. Of an earlier time,  
when he was in her place. Of an earlier moment, when  
all he wanted was her and he couldn't have her. "This  
is happening," he says, "It's all I want. It's all  
I've ever wanted."  
"Chasing down aliens mistaken for the Second Coming?"  
He laughs at the absurdity. "That's not what I'm  
talking about," he says through the laughter. "I was  
talking about my partner."  
She smiles again. "I can't believe you stayed with me  
this long."  
"I couldn't see any of this without you."  
"What about them?" she asks of him. "You've worked  
with them almost three years now. They're just as good  
as I am. They're better, even."  
"They're very good, but there's no one else," he  
says, sounding almost like Charlie Cass from a  
Clifford Odets play he likes and can't remember the  
name of.  
"Stop with the B.S.," she insists.  
"It's not B.S.," he says firmly.  
More silence.  
"You want to go grab a drink?"  
"I don't think I'm in the mood tonight," she says.  
"What are you in the mood for?"  
"Peace and quiet," she says, glancing at him then,  
"and the eleven p.m. SportsCenter."  
He smiles knowingly. "Want company?"  
"Always."  
He offers his hand like the gentleman he is, and she  
takes it with the firm hold of a partner as they  
stand. He glances to the door as she takes one last  
look at the stars, but they don't make any particular  
motion. Instead, he watches the smile come to her face  
as she observes the pattern below them, and then he  
reaches out for her one more time, resting his head on  
the top of hers, looking out at the world around them,  
feeling time stop and settle. There is no other  
moment, no other concern, he decides. This is a time  
when all he needs to do is just to be. This is a  
moment he wouldn't mind capturing for the rest of his  
life. These moments which remind him, personal hell  
and aliens and upstairs B.S. aside, that he is still  
alive. And that this life may not be perfect the way  
it is, but that there are pieces of heaven in it,  
things that make life worth living at any cost.  
It is not that this fight is over. They will sit  
wherever they end up and discuss it, getting  
technical, possibly pointed, until they reach an  
agreement, a consensus. They will remember it and they  
will work around it until in a day or two it no longer  
matters. But it is that every argument they've ever  
had provides the smallest window into reminding them  
that while they're different, they are still together,  
and that that difference is important to them. It is  
as important to them as anything else in their lives,  
because they are important to each other. And perhaps  
a few heated words don't hurt if it helps them to  
remember that which they can't forget.  
"Are you ready?" his partner asks of him.  
"Maybe we'll wait a couple more minutes," John  
Doggett says to the night.  
  
Chances are I'll see you  
Somewhere in my dreams tonight  
Chances are I'll hold you  
And I'll offer all I have  
I've always wanted to stay with you  
And see you in the morning light  
And I'll wait with you  
Till the night...  
- Vonda Shepard and Robert Downey Jr., "Chances Are"  
  
END  
  
=====  
"Oh, for God's sake, please be somebody else."  
- Lewis Black  
Natalie: Two guys have ascended 5 miles into the sky. They walked up a wall of ice and are preparing to knock on the door of heaven itself. There's really no end to what we can do. You know what the trick is?   
Dan: What?   
Natalie: Get in the game!   
- "The Quality of Mercy at 29K", "Sports Night" 


End file.
